There is this fish that has been haunting me for the past two months! I saw him at PetSmart early May and loved his cute little face. I decided not to get him. My first betta, Pontus, died early in June. A few weeks later I ended up buying another betta fish, Catullus. I stop into PetSmart once a week (at least) to see the fish, and this fish, who Iíve named Agrippa, has been there the whole time! I finally broke down today and adopted him. Heís sick and needs tending. I probably shouldnít have rescued him, since Iím far from being a betta expert. Still, his chances are better with me than with staying in that tiny cup for another two months. Here are some pictures.

Hereís one of him looking like a cutie!

He has red blood spots at the ends of his fins. I have him in a one gallon hospital tank to which I have added one teaspoon of aquarium salt. Thereís also a snag in another fin. Iím planning on keeping him in the hospital tank for a few days and then moving him to a permanent 2.5 gallon, heated, filtered tank with silk plants. The hospital is heated, but I doubt he needs it as my house is blazing.

Also, I can see through him. Is that ok? Iím assuming heíll get so more color when/if I can get him back in better condition.

Aww he's so cute! I'm really glad that you did adopt him! Don't worry we can help ^_^

As far as color, yes being see through is just fine. The way color works is that the top layer is the iridescent layer and then blue, underneath blue is black, red and then yellow. So literally different colors have different amounts of layers! So that's why many yellow/white Betta's are see through because they have the least amount of layers

As to his bloody fins, nothing that the salt and clean water won't help! I suggest using the salt at 1 teaspoon per gallon as you've already started for 7 days. Do a full water change every day with using the salt (make sure to dissolve first!) and if you've got Stress Coat you can use that as well

After the 7 days, if that red still hasn't gone away you can do another 7 days of the salt/water changes but really just what he needs is good, clean water. So up to 14 days with the salt and then no more salt unless you give him 4 days rest and you can start again if you really want to. But if you see the red go away before that then you can stop the salt and just continue doing water changes. At that point you can do them every other day and not every day so it won't stress him too much but still keeps him in clean water

I'm glad you're using a heater still though. I know many people don't realize, even if the house is heated night and day that the temp still drops at night so the temp swing isn't going to be very healthy for him unless it's like literally 2-3 degree's that's fine but more isn't good.

I'll keep up that salt regime for a week, if needed, and see how he does. He's becoming more active. After about an hour of trying, he finally ate four pellets! I'm very pleased as I need to fatten that poor boy up. Agrippa makes Catullus look like a gigantic monster, and I'm pretty sure Agrippa is older than Tully. Still, I'm going to keep feeding him four pellets for a few days and then increase it gradually to five and then six.

I've noticed some issues with his swimming. He gets around fine and can move pretty quickly. He darted around the tank in shock when I first added him. He seems to have trouble moving his tail fins though. It looks as though he only moves the first half of his body when he's swimming. Could that be because he was cramped into that little cup for so long? I did see him move his tail slightly for a second.

As far as the swimming, sometimes when they don't have the strength they will do that. I noticed that my new VT boy does that, he's suffering fin rot and a split anal fin. So he just uses his pectorals and first half of his body while my other fish use all of it. So in time he will gain strength and be able to use them again but yes, could also be from being cramped and he just needs to stretch his fins out ^_^

And that all sounds great to me! If you need you can split up the four between twice a day so that he doesn't have to wait a full 24 hours to eat again and then increase from there yeah I was going to mention that you needed to fatten him up haha

Thanks for the advice; I'll definitely split up his feedings. Hopefully when he gets stronger and bigger he will be able to swim more normally. For now, he doesn't have a problem getting around and is eating well. I'll continue to post updates on his condition.

UPDATE: The three blood spots on Agrippa's tails are quickly fading away. Two of them are nearly gone. Every time I try feeding him pellets, he spits them out. I've tried feeding him flakes and he'll eat here and there. I've read that it sometimes takes fish time to adjust to their new home before they will eat. Hopefully he'll start eating normally soon.

He still has some trouble swimming. It almost looks as if he has a back problem. When he tries to swim backwards, his spine (or the betta equivalent to one) somewhat folds in to move. I've never seen my other two bettas do this, so I'm assuming it's a problem.

Well the good thing is that he doesn't have any apparent spine issues that I can see. He looks well formed to me. Most likely he's not accustomed to stretching his fins so to say as you had mentioned; he was stuck swimming in circles and didn't need to use his fins. So now it's going to take him about a week or two to learn how to use his fins properly again.

My VT that I rescued has just started to use all his fins now and flare nicely So just give him time and he'll come around.

It's probably one of the most frustrating things about this hobby, at least for me; it's a waiting game!

But yes, you can feed him the flakes if he'll eat them, I fed mine flakes too. But now all he accepts are Omega One pellets haha so just keep trying and he'll come around!